Faithfully
by littleoases
Summary: "That moment when Santana had sworn, even though she and Brittany were standing at opposite ends of the raised platform…that she could still feel Brittany's energy zinging toward her, like they were connected on the same current." Brittana, Seasons 1 through 5, as told in five increments.
1. Restless Hearts

Note: This chapter takes place in the final episode of Season 1, just after New Directions has lost at Regionals.

…

It's chilly when they step out of the theater. Santana follows behind Artie and Mercedes with Brittany's pinky linked around hers, the only heat Santana can feel. They wind their way through pockets of audience members, most of them kindly middle-aged women who tell them, as they shuffle by, what a _great job_they did. Santana trains her eyes on the wheels of Artie's chair so she doesn't snap.

They walk in silence until they reach the back corner of the parking lot. Mr. Schuester stops at the trunk of his car and places his palm over the scraped-up paint, and the rest of them wait.

"Do you guys…want to go for pizza?" Mr. Schuester asks.

"For what?" Santana says. "So we can celebrate?"

"Santana—"

"She's right," Rachel says. "Let's just go home, Mr. Schue."

"Come on, guys," Mr. Schuester says. "That performance was something to be proud of, even if we didn't win."

"We didn't even place, Mr. Schue," Artie says.

Finn cuts off Mr. Schuester's retort. "It's okay, Mr. Schue," he says. "I think we all just need some time."

Mr. Schuester nods his head, his skinny jaw set in defeat. "Alright. Let's take some time to regroup, and…I'll see you guys on Monday."

They disperse to their cars without saying anything else, the 11 of them separating into small carpool clusters, Puck skulking off by himself. Santana wonders whether he'll go back to the hospital to be with Quinn. She shuts herself into the passenger side of Brittany's car and waits for the moment when it will be just the two of them.

Brittany shuts herself in on the driver's side. She sits straight up with her hands on her lap, staring ahead through the windshield. Neither one of them speaks.

They listen to their teammates' cars start up. Santana waits until Brittany's is the last car remaining before she speaks.

"You were great, Britt."

Brittany turns to her. "You were too, Santana."

Silence.

"Do you want to get some food?"

Brittany nods and turns the key in the ignition.

They go to Burger King. Neither one of them likes Burger King, but it's the closest fast food joint they can find.

"Is it ridiculous that I want a Whopper," Santana says.

"No," Brittany says. "Is it ridiculous that I want to go inside and talk to the cashier people just to make sure we're still on the same earth?"

Santana half-smiles. "It's not ridiculous, Britt."

They get home late. They carry empty Burger King bags into Brittany's kitchen, having already eaten their French fries and Whoppers in the car. Santana can smell the grease hanging around them even after they throw their bags in the trash can. It makes her whole reality seem even more mundane, more pathetic, than it already had.

They tiptoe up the stairs to Brittany's bedroom, past the familiar old sign on Brittany's door and into the sanctuary of their own private space. Santana pushes Lord Tubbington off the bed—he swats at her wrist before waddling off toward the closet—and plops down onto the mattress so she can tug off her heels.

She and Brittany say nothing to each other as they unstrap their heels and pull off their headbands. The songs from their performance tonight pound in Santana's head, circling around the wires of her brain, the wires usually buzzing with cheerleading moves or gossip from the hallways or words Brittany has said.

Brittany throws her heels and headband into a pile on the carpet. She leans against her pastel-painted wall and swings her eyes to the ceiling.

"How do we get the magic back?" she asks.

"What?"

"The magic from tonight," Brittany says, like it's obvious, and Santana is reminded of when they used to play pretend as children, when Brittany would casually mention dragons with poisonous tails and cupboards that led to eternal gardens and the angel wings she swore she could see sprouting from Santana's back.

Santana massages her ring finger. The songs from their set list swing on a mad carousel in her head. "I don't know, Britt," she says, her shoulders and chest aching.

Brittany's face changes as she looks at Santana. After a moment, she says, "Lie down."

"What?"

"Lie down, please."

Santana's head starts to pound with something else. Her muscles shift from heavy lead to nervous springs.

"On the bed?"

Brittany steps closer and touches Santana's wrist. She blinks in the darkness, and Santana is hooked by the whites of her eyes.

"Lie down, Santana."

Santana does as she's told. She lays her body down on the bed, her sparkly gold dress scratching against her skin, her limbs rigid, her heart beating faster and faster. Suddenly she is 11 years old again, lying on the floor in Quinn's bedroom while the girls from school play "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" with her skinny, bony frame, their expressions hungry for a show, their eyes refusing to notice Santana's nervousness. Only Brittany, her body already longer and leaner than everyone else's, peers at Santana with concern.

"Relax, Santana," Brittany says.

"What are we doing?" Santana asks, unable to keep the nervousness out of her voice.

Brittany lies down on the bed next to her, her weight dipping the mattress, and Santana squeezes her fists to stop her arms from shaking.

But Brittany lies parallel to Santana's body. She does not turn into Santana, does not even touch her. Santana can sense her in the darkness, can imagine the shape Brittany's body makes as she lies there staring up at the ceiling.

Then, a faint glow. The light from Brittany's cell phone.

"Close your eyes," Brittany says.

Santana obeys. Then she hears the music.

It's the opening notes of "Faithfully."

"Britt," Santana says.

"Shhh. Just listen."

And they lie there in the dark, with the ceiling fan swirling gentle currents of air over their performance dresses, while the song plays between them. And Santana returns to that moment from only a few hours ago, that moment after Finn and Rachel had separated from the rest of them to lead the song from the back of the auditorium, that moment when she and the others had stepped onto that raised platform behind the curtain and waited with pounding hearts for the music to start.

That moment when Santana had sworn, even though she and Brittany were standing at opposite ends of the raised platform, with Mike, Mercedes, and Kurt between them, that she could still feel Brittany's energy zinging toward her, like they were connected on the same current.

The music plays and Santana surrenders to it. Flashes of tonight catch on her mind. The sound of Finn's voice leading off the song. The stubborn wisp of hair that had poked out from beneath Quinn's headband, which Santana had bizarrely wanted to reach forward and fix when they were in the middle of their choreography. The thrill she had felt during her solo line, when her voice was the only sound in that mass of living people. And Brittany's eyes. The infinite spark in Brittany's eyes when they had looked at each other just before "Don't Stop."

"Do you feel it?" Brittany asks, with her eyes, with her voice. "Do you feel the magic?"

Santana doesn't think about the Algebra 2 exam she has on Monday. She doesn't think about Quinn's newborn baby. She doesn't think about Coach Sylvester or the end of glee club or what it means that she and Brittany are lying here in the dark together.

The song ends, and Brittany taps on her phone. The space between them glows with blue light. Brittany looks from her phone to Santana, and Santana reaches out to touch her.

...

…

…

I will publish Part 2 next week. In the meantime, you can read my 21 other Brittana fics and/or my original novel by visiting my profile.


	2. Right Down the Line It's Been You and Me

_"So you two are in love? Soulmates, so to speak?"_

- Jacob Ben Israel

...

...

...

She waits for Brittany after glee club's final Fleetwood Mac number. The others lag around the stage, hugging Sam and high-fiving his little brother and sister. Santana stands near the curtain, brushing her fingers against the burnt red velvet, her heart compressed beneath the buckles of her overalls.

Finn and Quinn leave, then Rachel and Kurt, then Puck and Zises. Artie wheels his way past her, not looking her in the eye. She doesn't care. Her eyes are on Brittany.

She keeps waiting for Brittany to turn around, to indicate that she sees Santana hanging back to talk to her. She knows Brittany notices her-she can tell because Brittany is trying too hard to keep the attention of Sam's little sister.

She pushes herself onto the stage before she can think about it. She stalks past Tina and Mike, past Mercedes, past Sam, until she's standing above Brittany, who kneels on the stage floor to speak to Sam's little sister.

"Hey," Santana says.

Brittany licks her lips and keeps her eyes on Sam's little sister. Stacey looks up at Santana, bewildered.

"Hi, Stacey," Santana manages. "Can I talk to Brittany for a sec?"

Stacey looks back to Brittany. "Will you come play with me this weekend?"

"Of course I will," Brittany smiles. "We can search for magic trolls in the parking lot. I still have my guidebook."

Stacey scampers off into Sam's arms. Brittany rises from the stage, her wavy blonde hair swaying with the movement. She still refuses to look at Santana.

"I didn't mean it," Santana says.

"I can't talk to you right now," Brittany says. "If I talk to you, I'll get angry, and that's my second-least favorite human emotion."

"Britt, just because I said something to that stupid Jew Fro reporter, doesn't mean it's how I actually feel."

"I don't know how you actually feel, Santana, because you're not being yourself."

"I _really _wish you would stop acting like you know me better than I do. Maybe I'm trying to figure all that out right now, okay?"

"No you're not," Brittany says, finally looking her in the eye, arresting her. "You already know who you are. You're just not being that person."

She brushes past Santana, her movements forced and full of anger like the day she presented Santana with her "Lebanese" t-shirt. Tina and Mercedes swing their eyes from Brittany to Santana, their expressions hungry.

"What?!" Santana snaps. "Mind your own boring-ass business, Harold and black Kumar."

She spins away from them and storms off.

...

The good thing about hanging with Dave Karofsky is that he doesn't judge her. Why would he, when they're keeping the same secret?

"Is it hard for you, lying to everyone?" he asks in her car that afternoon. He wears that sad kicked-puppy expression that she hopes she doesn't mirror.

"No," she lies.

He peels open a package of string cheese and stares at it for a long second.

"Do you think you'll ever be able to love someone?" he says.

She twists her fingers in her lap. Dave waits, his expression desperate.

"I don't know."

"You're in love with someone now, aren't you?" he asks. It's not a challenge: it's a plea for kinship.

Santana turns away from him. Her eyes land on the backseat of her car, where one of Brittany's sweatshirts, discarded weeks ago, lies crumpled against a seatbelt buckle.

"Yeah," she says, her voice trembling.

Karofsky sighs. "Me too. I mean-maybe. I mean I like someone."

"God, we are pathetic. We're a joke. How many closeted gay kids does it take to-?"

"Santana? Are you going to come out someday?"

Her eyes flicker to his, but the desperation in his expression is too much: she looks away again.

"Of course I am," she says, insisting for her own benefit as much as for his. "Sometime in the future when I'm light years away from this hell hole. When I'm a star and not afraid of anything anymore."

"This girl you're in love with..." Karofsky says. "What does it feel like to be in love with her?"

She looks to the backseat again. At Brittany's sweatshirt, at the countless other impressions Brittany has made on her car. The faded sticker of a duck on the rear cup holder. The dark stain on the foot mat from the time Brittany spilled her root beer. The phantom sensation she can feel in her limbs as she remembers all the times Brittany hovered over her, her long legs kicking back on the window.

"It's fucked up right now," she says. "But-when I forget about the bad stuff-when it's just me and her-it's the most alive I ever feel."

Karofsky turns the string cheese over in his hand. "That's nice," he says.

"Dave-you know it's going to be okay for you. Right?"

Dave doesn't reply. Santana wrings her hands in her lap again. She wishes Brittany was here. Brittany would know what to say to this boy.

"It'll be alright," she mutters. "We're both going to be fine."

...

She drops Dave off just before it starts to rain. The water drums on her windshield as she crosses back through town. She's miraculously thinking about something other than Brittany-her physics homework-when that goddamned song comes on the radio. That unmistakable, desperate piano. The universe always knows how to gut her where it most hurts.

The song paralyzes her. Traps her. She can't change the radio station, can't do anything other than coast onward against these relentless raindrops while her mind spins backward to the night they sang this song at Regionals.

And she remembers Finn and Rachel's stupid expressions, and the rapt attention of the audience as they witnessed these two young lovers, this boy and girl, bare the longings of their hearts for the whole auditorium to see.

Finn and Rachel could sing this ballad to each other across a sea of people. Finn and Quinn could do it now, too. Or Puck and Zises. Mike and Tina.

Artie and Brittany.

Karofsky and herself.

The song doesn't feel like it belongs to her anymore-if it ever did at all.

By the time she gets home, her face is as wet as the windshield.

...

_I'm sorry_, she texts that night. _I'm not in love with him. I promise I'm not. _

Brittany writes back a minute later. _I know. _

_I love you britt. Please tell me you know that. _

_We can't keep going in circles san. _

_We won't_, Santana promises. _I'm working on it. I'm trying to be braver. Please be patient with me. _

_Please hurry_, Brittany writes.

A few seconds later, Brittany sends an addendum.

_I miss you. _

...

She listens to pop music while she does her homework, but it's no distraction for the endless loop in her head.

She sends Brittany an e-mail close to midnight. She writes nothing in the subject line, nothing in the body. It would look like a mistake if she hadn't attached the song at the bottom.

...

Brittany sends her a reply ten minutes later. The only words it contains are seven lyrics from the song.

_Wondering where I am / lost without you _

...

_Me too, _Santana texts her.


	3. We All Need the Clowns to Make Us Smile

They're on an absolute high on the car ride home from the Sugar Shack. Brittany jerks the zipper of her winter jacket up and down, almost manically, her giddiness contagious. Santana reaches over from the driver seat to flick Brittany's earrings and crabwalk her fingers up Brittany's arm until Brittany grabs her hand and squeals that she has to stop. They pop in the Valentine's Day mix that Brittany made, and Santana laughs a hard, euphoric laugh as soon as she recognizes "Purple People Eater." Brittany kneads Santana's knuckles and twists sideways in her seat just to _look _at Santana.

They float into Brittany's kitchen like two princesses coming home from the ball. Mrs. Pierce looks up from the table, where she sits with a pen and a folder of papers, with an expectant grin and a question in her eyes. Santana and Brittany plop their goody bags on the center island and Brittany heaves a dramatic sigh as she floats over to the table to hug her mother.

"I take it you two had a good time?"

"Mom, it was uh-_mazing_," Brittany says. "Everything was pink and red and _so _unicorn, and Santana was amazing, and the Jesus Jumpers dedicated a song to me-"

"The who?"

"The God Squad-" Santana says, unable to check the smile she knows is blooming on her face.

"They sang me a love song," Brittany says, slumping against her mother's side like the goodness of the evening is too much for her to bear. "A love song that Santana asked them to do. And Mom it was _so _cute and Santana was so brave..."

They recount the entire evening to Mrs. Pierce, who sips from her nightly mug of herbal tea and takes in every detail of their account as if she's listening to a movie review. The kitchen radio plays next to the sink, supplying them with quiet soft rock music as a backdrop to their conversation. Santana hesitates from joining Brittany and her mom at the table, still unsure of how much affection she should show Brittany in front of her parents, no matter how long she's known them.

Eventually Brittany springs off her mom's shoulder and steps toward Santana, pulling her by the hands. She twirls her in a circle and says, "Mom, I mean, look at this beautiful unicorn of a person. I don't know who your valentine was this year, but I'm pretty sure Santana is better-"

"Your dad got me a dozen roses, missy," Mrs. Pierce says, raising her eyebrows.

"Did this 'dad' person dedicate a song to you in front of all your friends? Mm _no_. I don't think so. Santana wins."

"Okay, Santana, you win," Brittany's mom says, playing along.

Santana can feel her energy waning as the minutes go on, but though her euphoria and giddiness melt away, she stays disbelievingly happy. Being with Brittany is like carrying a fire around beneath her skin: there are special pockets of time, like tonight, when it blazes to life; there are short, jumpstart moments, like when Brittany kisses her in glee club when she doesn't expect it, when the fire wakes with sudden sparks; and there is that perpetual state of being, that constant of knowing that she loves Brittany and Brittany loves her, that warms her and consumes her to the point where she can't remember what existed before the fire.

Now she and Brittany sit at the table and snack from their goody bags while they talk. Brittany steals Santana's boxes of Jujubes; Santana steals Brittany's Twizzlers. Mrs. Pierce leans forward on her elbows while she listens to them, her hands clutched around her tea, her smile knowing.

"Can Santana stay over tonight?" Brittany asks.

"It's a school night."

"Well, every night is a school night for someone, like think about the cheerleaders in China who have to go to school on Saturday-"

"No, Brittany. No sleepovers on weeknights. Maribel would say the same thing, wouldn't she, Santana?"

Santana smiles, guilty. "She wouldn't even let me get the question out."

"You can have another 30 minutes." Mrs. Pierce looks back and forth between them. "And then curfew. And Britt, that doesn't mean you can sit in Santana's car for another hour after you walk her out. Don't think Dad and I haven't picked up on that-"

"That's research," Brittany says. "To experience the life of drug traders who sit in cars all night."

"It's you two making out in the driveway and don't try to tell me otherwise."

Santana's face sears with embarrassment, but Brittany doesn't seem fazed. "Ten minutes in the car," she haggles.

"Five."

"Deal."

"Good. I'm going up to do my yoga. Enjoy your half-hour and then _get to bed_. I don't care how pretty Santana looks tonight-"

"She always looks pretty," Brittany says.

"Well, I can't contest that. Happy Valentine's Day, sweethearts," Brittany's mom says, kissing them both goodnight.

"'Night, Mom."

"'Night, Mrs. Pierce."

Then they're alone in the kitchen, and Santana coughs with embarrassed laughter.

"I can't believe she mentioned us making out."

"She's probably jealous," Brittany says. "Everyone's probably jealous. 'Cause they all wish they could make out with you."

"Britt," Santana says, shy.

They go quiet, just looking at each other in the stillness of the kitchen. The heart sticker on Brittany's cheek has started to peel, and Santana reaches up to smooth it down. Brittany takes her fingers and kisses them in thanks. The sink radio croons its soft rock music, filling the space around them with mundane everydayness, proving to Santana just how special this night is in contrast.

"Do you hear the song that's playing right now?" Brittany asks.

Santana strains her ears. She can barely make it out. But that piano-

"C'mere," Brittany says, pulling her up from her chair.

They dance in the four feet of space between the table and the counter. It's easy dancing: more like holding each other while they shift their weight from one side to the other. Santana holds Brittany like she did when they were at the Sugar Shack, closing her eyes against her cheek and breathing in her perfume.

"Thank you," Brittany says, "for tonight. For dedicating that song to me in front of everyone."

Santana swallows. "I wish I could have done things like this earlier. I wish I could have sung you 'Songbird' in front of everyone."

"I used to wish that, but now I don't. Now I'm thankful that it's my own private gem."

Santana burrows her face into Brittany's neck. "You're magic," she tells her.

Brittany laughs-a gentle, vulnerable laugh-in her ear. "Do you remember when you e-mailed me this song last year?"

"Yeah."

"I was so sad."

"So was I."

"But now I'll hear this song and I'll think of dancing with you on our first Valentine's Day."

"Britt."

"I will," Brittany says, brushing a kiss against her cheek.

Santana doesn't argue that this song is problematic, that it makes her nostalgic and achy, that it makes her wonder whether this song can ever fully be theirs or if it's eternally braided into those nights of secrecy and jealousy. Tonight this song is a love ballad, and Santana is in love.

They dance until the song ends, until the deejay's voice jars them out of the moment. Brittany pulls back from Santana and trails a hand down her hair, her lips pressed together in a too-good-to-be-true smile.

They turn off the radio and pad into the family room, and for the next 20 minutes Santana lies in Brittany's arms while that song whirrs around her head.


	4. Two Strangers

It's her first full week in New York, and the hole in her stomach seems bigger than it had been in Louisville. Rachel and Kurt withhold the warmth she had expected from them-they offer her a wary sort of tolerance instead. They flit their eyes over her frizzy, messy hair when she wakes in the morning, their lips curling with a millimeter of triumph as they realize she isn't as flawless as they once thought. She feels them watching her when she makes coffee before work, their body language silently reproving the amount of cream and sugar she borrows from their stock. They pad past her when she sprawls on the couch with an age-old novel in her hands, and she intercepts the looks they shoot each other across the loft, the looks that say _Wow, who knew she had a shred of intelligence._

She riffles through their stuff because she needs that element of control again. She craves that power of superiority, of _knowing things_. She needs reassurance that she has something on them, that they have no right to treat her like a second-class performer or a substitute for the friends they would rather have here. The anxiety in her chest abates as soon as she starts opening drawers and digging in coat pockets. It's muscle memory; it's instinct. Suddenly she is 15 years old again, riffling through Quinn's closet with Brittany at her side, the two of them determined to knock Quinn off her pedestal, both of them insisting that what they're doing is okay. Both of them acting like it's normal to kiss each other afterwards.

She has the whole loft cleaned by the time Rachel and Kurt come home. They notice nothing. Both of them jabber on and on about their day, but neither one of them asks how Santana's day was.

She's surprised-and grateful-when Kurt suggests she take a look at his DVD collection the next morning. "If we're going to be snowed in like this," he says, flicking his arm in disdain for the weather, "we might as well get cozy with a musical or two. I already know my movie collection by heart, but you should go through it and see if there's anything you want to watch."

"Yeah, Lady Hummel, like I want to watch anything you own," she says, working to disguise her gratitude.

Kurt's movie collection is more eclectic than she would have guessed. She finds half a dozen indie flicks that she's been meaning to watch, plus a few obscure musicals she's always wondered about.

Then she finds an unmarked DVD case.

"Score," she mutters, thrilled at the thought that she's discovered Kurt's secret porn stash.

But it's not porn. When she coaxes the DVD into her computer, prepping herself for the gawdy, trashy role play she will no doubt find, she is sideswiped by complicated memories instead.

_Regionals 2010_. That's what the screen says-white letters on a pitch-black rectangle-before it fades into that sacred auditorium and the sound of that goddamn piano.

And there they are: Finn and Rachel, gliding into the auditorium with their pure, heartfelt voices. And she is back behind that curtain, unable, for once, to feel the shape of the hole in her stomach.

Her body heats when Finn and Rachel rush up to the stage. And that curtain goes up, and there they are, she and Brittany and all the rest of them, singing out their every vulnerability and secret and dream.

The quality isn't very good-Burt must have filmed with an outdated, early 2000s camcorder-but it's still easy enough to locate Brittany's tall, lithe body. It's like Santana's eyes magnetize to those pixels.

She watches the whole performance-the entire three-part medley-even though some corner of her brain insists _Turn it off. Turn it off_. She watches her 16-year-old self, all pixels and colors and moments in time, cling tight to Brittany after the performance ends.

She slams the laptop shut.

She terrorizes Kurt and Rachel after that. She knows she's doing it, and she doesn't mean to, but it's so much easier to harass Rachel about Brody than it is to sit in silence with the hole in her stomach.

When they watch _Moulin Rouge _and Kurt gets weepy, she wrenches her eyes away from him and twists her fingers in her lap, commanding herself not to think of Brittany and all the songs they share between them. She distracts herself by dropping the bomb about Brody. The drama that ensues is a blessed relief from the memories in her head.

But later that night, when they've all fallen into silence while they watch the snow stick to the windows, she feels everything seeping into her heart again.

"Hello?"

Her voice. Just those two syllables. It's like packing sand-warm, gentle sand-into the hole in Santana's stomach.

"Hey, Britt," she says, leaning against the dirty walls of the mailroom.

"Hi. Are you doing puzzles and making word collages and all kinds of fun snowed-in things? I saw Rachel's Facebook post."

"Oh. Yeah. No, they had me watching gross musicals all day."

Brittany's silent for a beat. Then: "That's disgusting."

"Yeah," Santana laughs.

"What's wrong?"

"What?"

"Something's wrong, I can hear it in your voice. What's up? Did they not let you hang up your Edward Scissorhands poster?"

"Britt...I'm doing that thing again. I'm being mean."

"Santana..."

"I know, I know. But Brittany, they're so _annoying_. They're always watching me with their creepy gremlin eyes like they don't trust me or want to bake me in a soufflé or something. They're even more obnoxious than they used to be-"

"Are they being nice to you?"

"What?"

"Are they acting like your friends, Santana?"

She waits for a long beat. She doesn't want to answer the question-and especially not when her throat is this full.

"Santana," Brittany breathes. "They're doing the thing again, aren't they?"

"What thing?" Santana chokes out.  
"They don't trust your heart, do they?"

"Britt-I'm actually really worried about Rachel. This Brody guy she's seeing-he's totally a drug dealer. There's something shady about him. I keep confronting her about it but she just acts like I'm trying to ruin her life."

Brittany is quiet on the other end. Santana pictures her sitting on her bed, one hand on Lord Tubbington, her lips pulled into her mouth.

"One day they'll get you, Santana. One day they'll realize how stupid they were for not loving you the right way."

Santana blinks the tears down her face. She lets her breath out in one long exhale, working to hold back all her emotions. "Britt..." she says after a few seconds. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

"I know we're not-I mean I know you're dating S-sam-but I miss my best friend. I miss having a best friend."

"You still have a best friend. I'm just a long-distance best friend right now, but it doesn't mean I don't love you and want good things for you."

"Yeah," Santana breathes.

"They'll get better. Or at least Kurt will."

"Thanks."

"Hey...call me later if you still need to talk, okay? And call me anytime, day or night or apocalypse or whenever. Don't-don't be a stranger, Santana."

She swallows down all the bad things. They scoot their way through her esophagus like they're moving through tar. She feels them move all the way down to the hole in her stomach.

"Thanks, Britt."

"Yeah," Brittany says, her tone gentle and concerned. "You're my best friend, okay?"

"Yeah. You too."

"Bye, Santana."

"Bye."

She never takes Kurt's Regionals DVD out of her laptop. She expects him to ask for it sometime, for Rachel to breeze into the kitchen and suggest they watch it. She waits for weeks and weeks, guarding it in her DVD drive, hoping they won't remember it, and yet hoping they will. But neither one of them ever mentions it: they probably forgot it even existed at all.

...

...

...

Author's Notes:

You can read my other 20+ Brittana fics by going to my profile.

You can also learn about my original novel by going to my profile.


	5. I'm Forever Yours

_"I don't know, Mr. Schue. With this, and Finn-it's kind of hard to believe that anything lasts." _

_- Mike Chang, 5x12 _

_"I don't have any more pep talks. I just have you guys, and the memory of the people on this wall. My friends. We share this special bond-we're the only ones in the world who know what this glee club meant to us, what it felt like to sing together, to be together, what it feels like to say goodbye to it. I didn't come here to cheer you up, just to thank you-to thank you for going on this ride with me." _

_- Mr. Schuester, 5x12 _

...

They stare at the plaques of Lillian Adler and Finn for minutes and minutes. It feels weirdly religious, like they've assembled to worship or pray. Santana hears sniffling all around her and risks glances at the others to see what they're doing, to see if she's the weird one or the normal one.

They pull away one by one, almost like it's choreographed. Quinn leaves first, ticking her head to the side in a rigid, defensive movement. Puck walks after her, visibly swallowing. Mike presses against his tear ducts before he steps back from the group, not looking at any of them.

Brittany wanders away with her arms still crossed over her sweater. Santana hangs back, staring at her heels, before she follows her on impulse.

...

She finds her in the choir room, standing in the middle of the naked tiled floor. Brittany must hear her open the door, but she doesn't turn around. She faces the rows of poly shell chairs, her figure as still as a ghost.

Santana walks up beside her, and the two of them stare at the chairs together.

"Thank you," Santana says. "For-everything you said to me before the auditorium."

Brittany shrugs, her eyes sad. "It's how I feel. Coming back here, it just made everything so much clearer."

Santana drops her head, twists her fingers together.

"I-" she says. She clears her throat. "I don't like coming back here."

Brittany turns to search her expression. "It hurts me too," she says.

"Nothing's the same, Britt. Nothing can ever be the same. We're all disconnected now. Everything's disconnected."

"Santana, that's not true-"

"It is true. Look around this room. It's like I don't even know this place. You know what I wish right now? I wish I was 16 again, and sitting in that back row in my Cheerios uniform, and watching Berry and Finn butcher their attempts to flirt with each other. Quinn's not pregnant yet, and Berry's still this socially-unaware train wreck who doesn't matter to me, and Finn's still lumbering around with his-with his stupid Frankenstein walk-and you're still-you're still-"

"Santana," Brittany says.

"I don't understand why it changed, Britt. Why did any of it change? Brittany, it's like-it's like the magic is gone."

"It's not. You know it's not. It's like you showed me with 'Valerie.'"

"That's the only moment I've been happy," Santana says, her voice catching. "Only that moment with you. Britt, I-I'm scared of losing that-I'm scared of losing it like we've lost everything else-I'd rather h-hold it in my memory than risk l-losing it again-"

Brittany settles a hand over her wrist. "Santana."

"Yeah," she breathes.

"Come home with me."

"What?"

"Come back to my house. Say hi to Charity and Lord Tubbington. You don't have to make a decision about us yet. Just let me take care of you."

"Brittany, we can't-"

"Yes we can. There aren't rules, Santana. Just come home like we're 16 again. Like we just left Cheerios practice after stuffing porn magazines in Quinn's locker."

Santana laughs through the tears in her throat.

"Come on," Brittany says, pulling her away from the chairs. "Let's go home."

...

Brittany's house is something out of Santana's dreams. It's just as she remembered: The white kitchen with the scuffed wooden floor. The gingerbread cookie jar on the center island. The old radio next to the sink. The pictures of seven-year-old Brittany, toothless and exuberant, tacked with magnets on the fridge.

But it's different, too. The pile of mail sitting on the table is different. Gone are the white envelopes with the red McKinley seal in the upper left corner: they have been replaced by envelopes from MIT, with its Tetris-like logo. Gone are the colorful math workbooks in which Ashley learned how to multiply single-digit numbers: they have been replaced by black-and-white worksheets full of fraction sums and mixed number conversions.

"You look sad," Brittany says.

Santana closes her eyes, shakes her head. "No, just-absorbing."

"Come upstairs," Brittany says, taking her hand. "My room hasn't changed."

...

The sign on Brittany's door has faded, but it's still there. _Brittany's quarters - Stay out Ashley! _Santana can still smell the scented markers they had used to make that sign on a raw, windy day over eight years ago. The sweet imitation of cherry, so overpowering it had given her a headache. The stinging smell of grape that had lingered on Brittany's fingers, finding its way into Santana's braids before they had gone to bed that night.

Lord Tubbington starts to purr when they step into the room. "Hey, you crazy beast," Santana says, rubbing his ears. "It's nice to know you still resemble a pig-"

"Don't insult him, Santana," Brittany says. "He's made a lot of progress with his self-esteem these past few months."

Santana kisses between his eyes. "He knows I love him."

Brittany strokes Lord Tubbington down his back, trailing her fingers all the way to his tail, causing him to purr louder. Santana scratches his ears and watches Brittany's hand move, up and down, up and down.

Then Brittany cups her hand over Santana's.

"Britt-" Santana says.

Brittany rubs her fingers over Santana's knuckles. "Lie down."

"What?"

"Lie down, Santana."

"I thought you said-"

"I know," Brittany says, her blue eyes ticking back and forth between Santana's eyes. "I'm not going to try anything. Please lie down."

Santana balances on Brittany's expression. Brittany holds her eyes.

"Okay," Santana breathes.

She lies on her side, curling her body up into itself, her leopard print top choking her neck, her belt buckle digging into her hips. Brittany casts her a long, wistful look before she steps toward the light switch.

And now they're in darkness, save for the filtered evening light that tries to crawl through Brittany's curtains. And Santana rocks with the memory of how it felt to be here on spring nights during her junior year, when she and Brittany were shrouded in darkness with the fragile April light begging to be let into the room.

"Britt," Santana says, with a question she can't articulate.

"Shhh," Brittany says, leaning over the bed to trail her palm down Santana's hair. "Close your eyes and listen."

She shuts her eyes. She hears Brittany step away from the bed and toward her desk across the room, hears Brittany's fingers press against plastic. Then the unmistakable sound of a CD spinning.

The song comes on and she wants to say Brittany's name again. But she can't, because it gets trapped in her throat. Trapped by the thick mass of tears, tears that can't decide whether they want to burrow back down into her chest or claw their way out of her mouth and eyes.

But then Brittany is there, lying on the bed next to her, coaxing Santana's body into hers, baptizing her with the smell of her skin and the scent of her shampoo. Santana keeps her eyes closed and nestles her head into Brittany's chest, brushing her face against the thin wool of Brittany's sweater, breathing her in.

"It's alright," Brittany coos, her voice muffled against Santana's hair. "It's okay, Santana."

"Britt, this isn't-this can't be our-"

"What?" Brittany asks gently.

"This is their song," Santana cries. "It's _their _song. They sang it. It's not ours-"

"It's ours," Brittany insists. "It belongs to you and me and everyone in New Directions. Don't you remember, Santana? Don't you remember what it was like before the curtain went up?"

And they're 16 years old again, standing in darkness behind that mammoth red curtain, sweat sticking to their underarms and those metallic gold headbands digging into their skulls. They're 16 years old and this club is everything they never knew they wanted to belong to.

And Santana looks across the darkness just before the curtain rises to see Brittany grinning at her with that daring-to-believe smile.

"It's ours," Brittany promises.

And the curtain goes up and Santana can't see anything but blinding lights and Finn and Rachel's outlines. Her heart pounds harder than it did at cheerleading nationals. Her voice rushes out of her throat and onto the stage like a bird bursting out of a dark attic, and she can physically _feel _her teammates' voices doing the same, and she is standing there with her blood coursing through her arms, and she is dizzy and empty and free.

And Quinn is there, sidestepping into Santana's memory, her delicate pregnant belly pulling her into the choreography. And Kurt is there, his face still boyish, his limbs scrawny and uncertain in their movements. And Rachel is there, shining like she knows Broadway is ahead of her, her voice carrying them all to a higher plane, her smile radiant and disbelieving and all for him. And Finn-Finn is there, his mouth open in a lion's roar as he sings in harmony with Rachel, his weight shifting to his back leg to propel his voice forward, his stupid grin etched onto eternity.

And the song ends and Santana is standing on the raised platform again, her body angled away from the audience, her eyes on Brittany's jubilant face, the anticipation of two more songs shimmering between them like magic.

And that song is ringing in her head.

"Britt," she chokes.

"I've got you," Brittany whispers into her ear. "Just listen to the song. I'm forever yours. Forever. That's never going to change, Santana, okay?"

The track plays from the beginning again. Brittany has set it on repeat. And they're 16 years old and they have two more songs to sing. Two more songs until their performance ends, until Quinn's water breaks and Santana realizes that something unalterable has happened, until they're back on the stage and squeezing each other's hands while Coach Sylvester announces that Vocal Adrenaline has won. Two more songs until this infinite moment is over, until lies and "Landslide" and lockers, until that day in the hallway when Finn trapped her in her shame, until winning that Nationals trophy and kissing Brittany in the same hallways that once enslaved her. Two more songs until their break-up, until the new city where she is alone, until Rachel and Kurt break her heart so soon after she broke it herself. Two more songs until Finn is gone forever. Two more songs until Rachel might be gone too. Two more songs until nothing is ever the same.

And Santana is spinning on a loop, her memories intertwining with the lyrics of the song, her tears bleeding into Brittany's sweater, the past merging with the present.

"Forever," Brittany whispers. "Forever, Santana."

...

She's not sure how long she has slept. When she rolls over, blinking her itchy eyes into awareness, Brittany is no longer next to her.

Her mouth tastes like a protracted yawn, like her lungs are exhausted from working. Her face feels swollen from crying.

She draws herself gingerly out of bed, her belt buckle chaffing against her waist. Her bare foot knocks into Brittany's suitcase. She stares at the suitcase for a long moment before crouching down to lift it open.

...

Brittany looks up from the stove, her ponytail swinging, when Santana ambles into the kitchen. Her eyes skirt up and down Santana's figure, her expression melting as she takes in Santana's clothing.

"What," Santana half-laughs.

Brittany shrugs her shoulders and mouth. "It's nice to see you wearing my clothes again."

Santana tucks her hands into the pockets of Brittany's old sweatpants. "Yeah, well..."

"Plus I love when you wear clothes like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're not trying to be anything. Like you're just being you."

Santana ducks her head, not knowing what to say.

"Do you want some Spaghettios?" Brittany asks. "I promise I won't burn them like last time."

She pauses with her hand clutched around a ladle, and the image spins Santana back to those early high school nights when she and Brittany would stay up late watching _Sweet Valley High _and cooking every canned thing they could find in Mrs. Pierce's pantry. The nights when they'd slide around the kitchen in their socks, making excuses to touch each other anytime one of them lost her balance. The nights when Santana would stir Spaghettios or Chef Boyardee or chicken noodle soup around the saucepan while Brittany would practice doing splits on the kitchen floor. The nights when they'd talk about glee club and admit, with their body language and expressions and silence, that neither one of them was in it for the sabotage anymore.

"I'd love some," Santana whispers.

They eat a few minutes later, and true to her word, Brittany hasn't burnt the pasta. They sit side by side at the island counter, Santana staring at the pictures on the fridge and the radio above the sink and the hazy imprints of her memories all over this kitchen.

"I know that song is difficult for you," Brittany says, surprising her.

Santana stills, like her spine has suddenly shot through her skin and nailed her to the kitchen floor.

"Things are going to keep changing," Brittany continues in her softest, barest voice. "It's all going to feel farther and farther away. You won't remember the words to 'Trouty Mouth' and we won't be able to picture the shape Quinn's belly made when the stork caught her off guard. We'll forget how scared Kurt was. We'll forget what Finn's voice sounded like. And you and Rachel will keep changing, too. You might get better or you might get worse, or maybe you'll just feel apathetic about each other, which is the worst thing."

"Please stop," Santana says, her voice catching.

"No," Brittany says. "I've done that too many times before. Santana, we can't control for all that stuff. We never could, even back then. I know right now it seems like maybe things were better, like there was more promise when we were caught in that place of maybe-we-will-maybe-we-won't, but you know what? I don't want to be in that place anymore. Too many things can happen. We can lose people. We can forget what the magic feels like. But I don't want that with you. When I look at you it's like I'm watching you sing for the first time, like I'm watching you shed your deepest fears so you can show people your soul. That's what I love about you, Santana. That's what I've always loved about you. This club has changed and these people have changed, but _you _are this club to me. All the rest is just context. It's like those people and songs aren't even real for me unless I'm sharing the experience with you. So please, _be_ with me. Please have some faith that our magic will never run out."

Santana sits with tears building in her throat, with her fingers clenched on the countertop. Brittany's eyes are wet. They look at each other for a long beat, and Santana swears she can hear that piano. It's like they're back behind the curtain, staring at each other through the darkness. But then Santana inhales, her breath rising through her body as the curtain rises in the auditorium, and suddenly she has her arms wrapped around Brittany, squeezing her like she will never be real enough.

And that curtain goes up and they are singing, and every good and bad thing comes rushing out of Santana's throat, and the song in her head sounds like magic.

...

...

...

Thanks to everyone who followed this short fic series. Please visit my profile for my other Brittana fics and original LGBT novel.


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